Back in October I thought it might be interesting for Miscellaneotopia if I were to simply Google the word “utopia” and report my findings.  On the first page of search results alone, I turned up the Wikipedia page on Utopia, an online role-playing game called Utopia that has apparently been around since 1998 (plus two additional sites that offer tools for maximizing play!), a sixteen-city fiber-optic network in Utah called Utopia, a salon in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio called Utopia (this one comes up, no doubt, because I live one city over from Cuyahoga Falls), a line of eyewear (goggles and the like) for surfers and motocross riders, an Ohio-based motorcycle upholstery business specializing in a custom seat design called “The Utopia,” a website called Utopia: Asian Gay & Lesbian Resources, the Dictionary.com definition of utopia, and the text of Thomas More’s Utopia hosted on an instructor webpage at Oregon State University.  I’m not sure what I was expecting to come up having performed such a search, but the results were, well, diverse—to say the least.  It might be interesting for other Utopus Discovered readers to Google utopia and report their first-page findings too.  Takers?

I recently discovered that the Ohio-based jamband əkoostik hookah has a song called “Utopia” that appeared on its first album, Under Full Sail (1991).  Although the band has been around at least since ‘91, they haven’t done much outside the Ohio regional music scene.  Nevertheless, Under Full Sail was revisited by the jam-rock band, whose original singer, John Mullins, rejoined the band after a long absence in 2007 (but left again in 2010).  At that time, the band entered the studio and rerecorded songs from the original Under Full Sail record, then performed a live concert in the studio space for its most die-hard fans.  Among the tracks on the resulting release (entitled Under Full Sail: It All Comes Together), is the song, “Utopia.”  In spite of these developments, a quick internet search will not help to find lyrics to the song, but some enterprising utopia scholar interested in music may take up the task (hint hint).  There is also a rather impressive YouTube video of the band performing the song live in 2004 available here.

The International Communal Studies Association’s new bulletin came out in May, and it was suggested that it may be of interest to SUS members, so here ya go.

ISCA Bulletin #48